Westworld: S1E6

These are my notes for The Adversary, episode six of Westworld, season one. As with all these “notes” posts: Serious Series Spoilers! Do not read unless you’ve seen season one.

I’m faced with the prospect of rushing through the second half of the season in order to post all these episode notes before the new season airs this Sunday. Watching, thinking about, and writing about, an episode per day doesn’t sound like fun (mostly on account of all the writing), and I have no intention of turning this into work. (And I’m getting tired of writing about Westworld so much.) On the other hand, I do need to at least see the remaining episodes before the new season starts, so I might do these in a far more bare-bones fashion (and then maybe later come back and flesh them out).

I’ll see how it goes. For now, here’s episode six:

The episode title might refer to a general adversary — be it Dolores, William, Ford, Arnold, or some other character — but it also might refer to the ultimate “Adversary,” the biblical devil (in which case, let’s face it, we probably mean Robert Ford).

Alternatively, in this episode Ford is puzzled by seeing the maze in Las Mudas. Is the adversary Arnold or some remnant of his code? (Is Arnold the wolf?)

Dolores, who was, and will be again, Wyatt, makes a pretty good adversary. OTOH, given how the episode starts, could Maeve be the adversary (to Delores/Wyatt)?

And speaking of the episode starting…

1: Morning. Sweetwater. Maeve wakes up. And goes to work.

This episode (like the last one) doesn’t start in timeline 0, but in timeline 2 (hence the slightly different numbering scheme).

As Maeve walks to work, in the background, note the “Grizzly Adams” character (outside the train station, who bumps into Teddy in episode one and William in episode two). He bumps into someone, and they shoot each other.

At work Clementine seems tired. (From working all night?) A “rough customer” enters and Maeve takes him herself. She eggs the guy into killing her during sex so she can get back to the Service Area…

2: Mesa Service Area. Maeve and Felix.

Just a quick scene so we can see why Maeve wanted to die (i.e. to get back to Felix).

3: Mesa. Bernard’s Office. Bernard and Elsie.

They’re talking about the laser satellite uplink. The GPS data isn’t corrupted, it’s old-style and can’t be read by the new system. Arnold, almost portentously, says he’ll have to visit the old labs.

The elevator panel indicates there are also levels ‘A’ and ‘C’ — which we’ve never seen? (Or do some of the underground scenes use a letter in front of the level?)

Bernard sees a partially assembled robot dog at one point. Looks like Jock!

While getting the GPS data from the woodcutter, Bernard learns of five unregistered hosts in Sector 17.

5: Day. Las Mudas.

It’s after the attack by the MiB. A woman is cleaning up blood. A guy is patching the hold in the adobe wall (that MiB shot through). Suddenly all the hosts freeze (apparently no guests were in town).

Ford and some workers appear. Ford decides they’ll end the new canyon short of the town so it won’t have to be destroyed and the hosts reallocated or decommissioned.

Ford notes the pattern of the maze on a table and looks puzzled or upset. (Is the table top part of a coffin lid? Why is the maze there?)

6: Mesa. Ford’s Office. Ford is alone.

Note the diorama that hints at what happens in episode ten! Note the army in the trees off to the side. And note the church. This is Escalante!

Ford gets out a sketch book (Arnold’s?) and starts paging through it. He finds an image of the maze. He looks thoughtful or puzzled or upset…

Is it possible not everything is under Ford’s control? Are there things happening that he doesn’t know about? It seems Dolores is acting under Arnold’s influence and hiding that from Ford.

7: Day. Outside Pariah (in the graveyard). MiB and Teddy.

Teddy talks about the maze (as he understands it — a legend). They meet two guys in a wagon who tell them the soldiers have closed the border. But Teddy knows another way.

8: Mesa Service Area. Maeve and Felix.

Maeve is learning who she is! Felix uses the pad to show Maeve her own thoughts.

Felix says he’s human. Maeve asks him how he knows. He says he just does. (And, yet, Felix doesn’t really act very human.)

Maeve starts to accept the reality, but can’t at first and crashes. Felix freaks.

9: Mesa. Theresa’s Office. Theresa. Bernard enters.

Theresa breaks up with Bernard because Ford knows about them. (Not to mention the fact that it’s actually highly inappropriate given their departments.) Bernard accepts rather stoically.

(As it turns out, Theresa was the one who initiated the relationship, or so Ford says to her, and she doesn’t deny it. But I wouldn’t put it past Ford to dangle Bernard in front of her in such a way that she thought it was her idea.)

10: Mesa Service Area. Maeve and Felix.

Maeve reboots (Felix is so relieved). She makes Felix take her on a tour of the Service Area (“upstairs”). Felix is weirdly easy to convince.

They go on walkabout. No one notices! (I’m convinced nearly all the workers are hosts. Including Felix and Sylvester, who are, after all, named after imaginary cats!)

How is it no one notices them walking around? Is there no security? No surveillance? No monitoring of hosts?

Maeve sees herself and her daughter in a video display. Images right out of her dreams. Talk about freaked out.

Maeve thinks she’s been the madam of the Mariposa for ten years (and in New Orleans before that). Felix says, no, just one year. He says hosts are re-purposed all the time and they just make a few changes because the core personality takes “thousands of hours to build.”

Which raises all sorts of questions about host memory and how it works.

Sylvester enters, sees Maeve (who quickly pretends to be frozen) in her nightie and sitting up, and assumes Felix is being a pervert. Starts to read him the riot act when Maeve stops pretending and threatens Sylvester, whom she’s read like an open book.

11: Mesa Control Room and Theresa’s office.

We hear: “Ms. Hale is in town.” We see Theresa ending a video call with a Chinese man. (Again: real-time communication, so we’re almost certainly not off-planet. And, of course, we’re not. Theresa is probably fielding a call about the data package the woodcutter was supposed to send.)

12: Day. Mesa Bar. Lee drinking it up.

Theresa shows up and tells him to get his ass back to work. Ford has pulled a bunch of hosts (50?), leaving holes in storylines, so Lee needs to patch them.

13: Day. MiB and Teddy at the border. And a lot of soldiers.

MiB and Teddy try to infiltrate, but someone spots the infamous Teddy Flood. There’s some shooting, but both MiB and Teddy are captured.

14: Day. Mesa Bar.

A drunk Lee meets a woman who later turns out to be Charlotte Hale.

15: Mesa. Bernard’s Office. Bernard and Elsie.

Elsie is pleased with her work and ragging about Theresa to Bernard.

16: Mesa Control Room. Bernard and tech.

Bernard asks about the unregistered hosts in Sector 17. Tech says no one there. That sector is reserved for future storylines.

17: Day. Sector 17.

Bernard finds the Ford family hosts. The dad — whom Bernard recognizes as “Arnold?” from the photo Ford showed him — attacks Bernard.

Suddenly Ford is there (there is definitely no door to be seen on that wall).

The old-style hosts were a gift from Arnold to Ford. The “father” seen in that photo is probably the host Arnold made, not Ford’s actual father. They were posing with one of their creations.

When Bernard expresses his discomfort with the situation, Ford (again) invokes Bernard’s (supposed) past with Charlie. This seems to cause Bernard to back off. (Ford mentioned Charlie in Ford’s office when Bernard was asking about Arnold.)

The fifth host, by the way, is Jock the dog.

18: Mesa Control Room.

A very drunk Lee pees on the Westworld map from above. Then he (again!) meets Charlotte Hale, the Executive Director of the (Delos) board. She’s here to “oversee certain transitions in our administration.”

19: Mesa Service Area.

Bernard is investigating. He asks (the computer) how many first generation hosts are active in the park. Answer: 82. He asks how many were designed by Arnold. Answer: 47.

He asks for a list. One easily recognized host: Dolores! (Whom Bernard has never met.)

20: Day. Border. Soldiers’ Camp. MiB and Teddy, captive.

Teddy is about to be branded with a red-hot maze brand! (A brand used, for some reason, on coffins or other boxes?) But Teddy has freed his hands and attacks. Kicks ass! The MiB also gets free and starts shooting.

Teddy had a flashback of Wyatt and it’s clear that Teddy participated!

Teddy uses the Gatling gun to wipe out all the soldiers. MiB is surprised. Teddy: “You don’t know me at all.”

21: Mesa Service Area. Hallway.

Bernard and Elsie talk by phone. Elsie is on level 03 headed for the surface. She’s identified the satellite; it’s one of theirs!

And she’s found that someone is using the old bicameral radio system to access the hosts. She’s going to investigate.

22: Day. Outside. Ford and mini-Ford going for a walk.

Oh, dear, it turns out that mini-Ford killed Jock the dog (and lied about it)!

23: Somewhere in the park. Old Theatre.

Elsie is investigating. She finds the radio relay.

24: Mesa. Theresa’s apartment. Theresa. Pensive. Smoking.

Bernard shows up. He starts to tell her about the unregistered hosts and that maybe Ford is a bit off the rails after all…

But Elsie calls to say that she’s discovered Theresa was behind the woodcutter, so Bernard changes course and doesn’t tell Theresa anything.

25: Mesa Service Area. Maeve, Felix, Sylvester.

We learn a lot about host attributes in this scene.

Sylvester: “You run a whorehouse, not an orbital launch facility.” (Which suggests that maybe orbital launch facilities are a thing.)

Maeve “bonds” with Sylvester (sort of) madam to pimp.

26: Mesa. Hallway outside Theresa’s apartment.

Bernard phones Elsie. Who tells him it’s not just Theresa, but someone else has been using the bicameral radio system “for weeks” to reprogram old hosts. Seriously reprogram them, potentially way beyond their parameters.

Bernard warns her to be careful…

27: Ford’s old lab. Ford and mini-Ford.

Ford wants to know why mini-Ford killed Jock. Turns out mini is hearing voices. Arnold’s voice. Which told him the dog was a killer and killing him would protect it from killing.

Ford seems disconcerted. (Again: is he not in full control? Does he have an adversary?)

28: Somewhere in the park. Old Theatre.

Elsie is still investigating.

She hears something. Suddenly she’s grabbed from behind. We later learn it was Bernard, but he sure got there in a hurry from the hallway.

This episode takes place entirely in timeline 2, so there’s no need to straighten out the timelines here. We just have:

Ford: Up to his plans, but puzzled by the maze in Las Mudas as well as by mini-Ford’s behavior. It seems as if some remnant of Arnold is hanging around (albeit perhaps only in the code).

Elsie: “Clever girl,” but curiosity and the cat. Hopefully not killed, though.

Bernard: Mostly hanging out; looking into things a bit. He’s lost a lover, but found a friend’s robot family. And now Elsie’s run off.

MiB and Teddy: On the road. Around Pariah to the army-guarded border crossing, where Teddy manifests a new side that allows them to cross after all.

Theresa: Stressing out because the woodcutter exploit failed. And because she had to break up with Bernard after Ford threatened her.

Lee: Drunk. And disorderly.

Charlotte Hale: In town to kick (and get) some ass.

And Maeve: Has gotten a serious shock. Now she’s getting a serious upgrade!